How to clear system data on iPhone

• Restart the device. That's it.

If the above does not resolve the issue then...

I would ignore that because this system data will make room when you need more space on your iPhone. These are some cache and temporary files that will be erased by the system whenever you try to save more files.

You may --> Clear Other storage on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support (IN)

Tap on System Data it will take you to "Other System Data"

Now the question is what is the "Other System Data" storage. Read on...

• Other System Data: Non-removable mobile assets, like Siri voices, fonts, dictionaries, non-removable logs and caches, Spotlight index, and system data, such as Keychain and CloudKit Database. Cached files can't be deleted by the system.
• System: Space taken by the operating system. This can vary based on your device and model.

About cached files in "Other System Data"

Finder and iTunes categorize cached music, videos, and photos as Other instead of actual songs, videos, or photos. Cached files are created when you stream or view content like music, videos, and photos. When you stream music or video, that content is stored as cached files on your device so you can quickly access it again.

Your device automatically removes cached files and temporary files when your device needs more space.

If storage on your device differs from what you see in Finder or iTunes

Since Finder and iTunes categorize cached files as Other, reported usage for Music or Videos might differ. To view usage on your device, go to Settings > General > [Device] Storage.

If you want to delete the cached files from your device

Your device automatically deletes cached files and temporary files when it needs more space. You don't need to delete them yourself.

I'm having the same problem. Apps don't launch. I have a health care app that is critical to my wellbeing that I must use every few hours. I tap the icon and the app opens then immediately closes before anything is output to the screen. I check storage and over 1/2 of the 128Gb is used by system and other, the grey on the bar graph. I follow the step prescribed here and free up 10-20Gb. The app works fine. The next time I try to use it, I have to repeat the whole process. When I start the app, the system should return enough cache storage to let the app run. It seems the memory manager isn't doing it's job.

I have seen 127.7Gb used, cleared up system/other and gotten it down to 120Gb. Then, as I watch it, doing nothing, usage goes up to 125, drops to 122, then go over 127 again.

What I would like is to set a lower limit on available storage, say 1-2Gb, after which the system will start returning cache. As it is, it seems the current threshold for returning memory is too low.

Lacee did you ever find a solution to this? I’m having the same issue and going crazy over here. Thanks

laceefromseattle Said:

"System data taking all my iPhone storage!: No matter how many times I follow the recommendations and offload and delete apps- my iPhone 12 storage always fills up- I can’t figure out why. I have about 25gb in apps, 11 GB of photos, 9 iOS, 16 in system data! Anyway to reduce that system data? Capacity is 64GB- seems crazy that a third of that is stuff I can’t control."

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Clearing System Data (Formerly Called "Other"):

Use my User Tip: How to Clear "Other" in your iPhone's Storage - Use Backup - User Tip. Caches would be being used for remembrance of application use. You'd backup your iPhone, and then restore your iPhone from the backup you've just created. All System Data will delete.

iamrachelhale Said:

"Lacee did you ever find a solution to this? I’m having the same issue and going crazy over here. Thanks"

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Refer to my previous reply.

Hi Lacee!

i just ran into the exact same problem myself and from what I can tell the main problem is due to app cache. As far as I am aware the only way to get rid of app cache on iPhones are to delete the app or some apps(not all only like 3 of mine had this) have a built in delete cache button in the app. It won’t completely remove all system data but it should take a large chunk. Just delete apps and reinstall them. Because app cache is included in the “System Data” category. After doing this my system data went from 25ish gbs to 17 gbs.

however I’m gonna be honest with you I think the main issue is definitely your photo storage. Check through your settings because their should be an option like low quality saving or something along the lines of that. Dw it won’t make them like 240p they still look almost identical to the originals but take up a fraction of the storage. I have over like 10k photos but only 1 gbs worth of storage. There’s also an option somewhere where is stores your photos in the iCloud and they still appear in your phone but after a while they get deleted…it’s kinda weird but like their still there just next time you wanna use them your phone would download them from iCloud. Idk if this’ll work for you since well what’s done is done and idk if you can revert your photos. I hope this helped.

The main cause for system storage taking up all your space is like I said in my other post here which is app cache. The only solution I’ve found to this is to delete and reinstall apps. Apps such as Spotify,YouTube, and discord were the main culprits on my phone (Spotify having 3gbs worth YouTube 5gbs and discord having 7 gbs worth). This could also be happening with other messaging or video based apps.

i have had this problem for years.. i now have 3 phones and 5 laptops. Im tied into these silly c^unts. No one in apple or whats app, knew what the issue is with the grey area. So i literally didnt have time to resolve the issue after spending months at a time and days literally on the phone with apple. They even told me i need to buy a new mac to resolve the issue which appeared to be a corruption. So i did (facepalm) it turned out that the new mac didnt have enough space to move the data around. So i then had to buy several external hard drives as the icloud had to be moved to the hard drives. The downloads then currupted the hard drives and i had to send the hard drives to an external recovery company, it has cost me thousands. It turns out the photos library was incorrectly stored etc and there were conflicts similar to this along the way.

Turns out after reading posts today!!!! Yes today after years.... that it could possibly be due to the audio files that you cannot delete when trying to clear space and the cache files responsible for the grey area. I am still stuck as to how to backup whats app. As whats app doesnt even mention audio files, so the values of what needs to be backed up keeps changing. I have removed literally every thing from my old phone apart from whats app and still cant back it up! SO now i am stuck with two phones and any moment now my old number will belong to a new owner and i will lose all of my whats app messages. HELP!!!

I discovered that ios 17.1.1 aparently has a bug in the memory manager not returning cache. I ended up having to deep sleep/suspending all of my apps. This is where it removes the app, deletes cache, but keeps stored data. That gave me enough room to immediately update to 17.1.2.

I tried just clearing all cache and the suspending some apps. In both cases, I could start the update, but cache would grow to take up available memory and the update would fail.

I don't know for sure if cache was growing or not after suspending all apps, but I had enough time to complete the update. After that, I restored apps as I needed them, which was a lot at first. I think there are some infrequently used apps that I have not yet restored, but I'm pretty close to where I was and I able to do everything I need to.

I still see over 127 Gb of usage, but everything works fine. If possible, skip 17.1.1. I was able to update my iPad from 16.x to 17.1.2. Also, I don't know if this bug effected ipados or not.

There may be other issues that cause this problem too. The other solutions here either didn't work or didn't apply. Maybe this will help some others with this problem.

Best of luck!

I discovered that ios 17.1.1 aparently has a bug in the memory manager not returning cache. I ended up having to deep sleep/suspending all of my apps. This is where it removes the app, deletes cache, but keeps stored data. That gave me enough room to immediately update to 17.1.2.

I tried just clearing all cache and the suspending some apps. In both cases, I could start the update, but cache would grow to take up available memory and the update would fail.

I don't know for sure if cache was growing or not after suspending all apps, but I had enough time to complete the update. After that, I restored apps as I needed them, which was a lot at first. I think there are some infrequently used apps that I have not yet restored, but I'm pretty close to where I was and I able to do everything I need to.

I still see over 127 Gb of usage, but everything works fine. If possible, skip 17.1.1. I was able to update my iPad from 16.x to 17.1.2. Also, I don't know if this bug effected ipados or not.

There may be other issues that cause this problem too. The other solutions here either didn't work or didn't apply. Maybe this will help some others with this problem.

Best of luck!

Yes, solution is to buy a new phone😂😂

make sure it is at least 512 GB!

This Reddit post has a procedure you can go through which helped my drop the amount of system storage on multiple occasions

https://reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/zzoqdj/psa_the_proper_way_to_delete_or_shrink_iphone/j2en9xo/

Check music streaming platforms everyone! My friend was having this problem and we learned it counted all his Amazon music albums were being counted towards that because they are cached.

This.

https://reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/zzoqdj/psa_the_proper_way_to_delete_or_shrink_iphone/j2en9xo/

Totally worked on my wife's phone clearing 100GB of system data without affecting any apps.

iOS 17.2.1 so this is still going on.

Thank you BAnthon for sharing the link.

Adrian.